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Drug Control: DOD Needs to Improve Its Performance Measurement System to Better Manage and Oversee Its Counternarcotics Activities

GAO-10-835 Published: Jul 21, 2010. Publicly Released: Jul 21, 2010.
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Highlights

The Department of Defense (DOD) leads detection and monitoring of aerial and maritime transit of illegal drugs into the United States in support of law enforcement agencies. DOD reported resources of more than $1.5 billion for fiscal year 2010 to support its counternarcotics activities. Congress mandated GAO report on DOD's counternarcotics performance measurement system. Specifically, this report addresses the extent to which (1) DOD's counternarcotics performance measurement system enables DOD to track progress and (2) DOD uses performance information from its counternarcotics performance measurement system to manage its activities. GAO analyzed relevant DOD performance and budget documents, and discussed these efforts with officials from DOD and the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP).

Recommendations

Recommendations for Executive Action

Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Defense To improve DOD's performance measurement system to manage and oversee its counternarcotics activities, and to address weaknesses identified in DOD's counternarcotics performance measurement system, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Counternarcotics and Global Threats to review the department's performance measures for counternarcotics activities and revise the measures, as appropriate, to include the key attributes of successful performance measures previously identified by GAO.
Closed – Not Implemented
DOD concurred with the recommendation. In response, DOD reviewed its counternarcotics performance measures through its Program Objective Memorandum process from May to August 2011 and analyzed these new measures against some of GAO's key attributes of successful performance measures. While the DOD review found that the measures showed some improvement against these attributes, its review did not examine certain attributes including those of limited overlap and balance. GAO found that DOD's fiscal year 2014 counternarcotics performance measures still lacked these attributes. For this reason, we determined that more work is needed by DOD to successfully incorporate all key attributes.
Department of Defense To improve DOD's performance measurement system to manage and oversee its counternarcotics activities, and to address factors associated with the limited use of DOD's counternarcotics performance measurement system, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Counternarcotics and Global Threats to apply practices that GAO has identified to facilitate the use of performance data.
Closed – Implemented
GAO identified key practices that agencies can adopt to facilitate the use of performance data--such as demonstrating management commitment, improving the usefulness of performance data, and developing agency capacity to effectively use performance information--and found that DOD had weaknesses in these areas. In response to this recommendation, DOD stated in May 2011 that it was working to improve the functionality and usability of its counternarcotics performance information so that counternarcotics program managers could use this information as a basis for decision making. In January 2012, DOD issued standard operating procedures for developing and documenting performance metrics for its counternarcotics activities. Issuing the guidance helps demonstrate management commitment to the use of performance data. The guidance directs DOD counternarcotics components to develop metrics that improve the usefulness of performance information, and also enhances agency capacity to use this information. Additionally, DOD implemented a series of working groups designed to build the capacity of DOD components to develop performance indicators and use performance information. These actions taken by DOD in 2012 address the weaknesses found by GAO in 2010.

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Topics

Data collectionDefense capabilitiesDrug traffickingGovernment information disseminationInformation disclosureInternal controlsLaw enforcementLaw enforcement information systemsManagement information systemsNarcoticsPerformance appraisalPerformance managementPerformance measuresReporting requirementsStrategic planning